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While many Britpop fans spent the late 90s onward hoping with that Oasis would pull something out of the cabinet that came close to Definitely Maybe or (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, they should've been expanding their sonic range farther west to Sweden, where the Soundtrack of Our Lives have been rolling out some of the genre's finest compositions. Hey, purists — it's still in the European Union. Throw It to the Universe, number six on the docket by the sextet, keeps pace with past efforts despite dragging at times. There used to be nods to '60s British Invasion bands, but now those have been replaced with something more in tune with the Summer of Love; less Manchester and more Haight-Ashbury, a scene even George Harrison found too out-there to deal with. That's the only part where Throw It to the Universe stumbles — getting a bit too hippy-dippy for its own good. "Reality Show" is overly druggy, lost in a haze that sounds phoned-in on a bad connection; but the magic remains elsewhere — as on the title track, where singer Ebbot Lundberg casually intones, "We are the songs you love to sing." It is pretty dead on.
